States don’t trust green energy, keep coal plants online to prevent blackouts

‘What we don’t want to do is take one step forward, and then two steps back’

• Coal plants in four states are keeping their plants online in order to prevent blackouts as the slowed expansion of green energy is creating problems for states’ electrical grids amid rising summer demand.
• “As we make this transition, we have to do it in a way that doesn’t lead to blackouts or brownouts,” Raymond G. Sandoval, director of Corporate Communications and Brand Management at PNM Resources, told the DCNF.
• “Renewable Energy is part-time energy, it works when it feels like it,” Dan Kish, senior vice president of the Institute for Energy Research, told the DCNF.

Coal-fired power plants in several states are delaying planned shutdowns in order to avoid blackouts and energy shortages as the delayed development of renewable energy sources is leaving gaps in states’ power grids amid high energy demand.

At least six coal plants in New Mexico and three other states are temporarily halting their retirement as utility providers say import tariffs and other supply disruptions on solar panels imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department are making it difficult to meet high demand, according to Reuters. Fossil fuels like coal plants and natural gas are preventing blackouts by filling the gaps in the grid that are being created by the push to implement green energy nationwide amid President Joe Biden’s aggressive energy transformation plan.

“As we make this transition, we have to do it in a way that doesn’t lead to blackouts or brownouts,” Raymond G. Sandoval, director of corporate communications and brand management at PNM Resources, an electrical utility company, told the DCNF. – READ MORE